MUR.

Fleance is 'scap'd.

Most royal sir,

MACB. Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect; Whole as the marble, founded as the rock:

As broad and general as the casing air :

But now, I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo 's safe?
MUR. Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides.
With twenty trenched gashes on his head;
The least a death to nature.

that 's fled,

MACB.
Thanks for that:
There the grown serpent lies: the worm,
Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
No teeth for the present.—Get thee gone; to-morrow
We'll hear ourselves again.

LADY M.

30

[Exit Murderer.

My royal lord,

You do not give the cheer; the feast is sold

That is not often vouch'd, while 't is a making,

'T is given with welcome: To feed, were best at home; From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony, Meeting were bare without it.

MACB.

Sweet remembrancer!

Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!

LEN.

May it please your highness, sit?

Enter the Ghost of BANQUO and sits in MACBETH's place.
MACB. Here had we now our country's honour roof'd,
Were the grac'd person of our Banquo present;
Who may I rather challenge for unkindness

Than pity for mischance!

ROSSE.

His absence, sir,

Lays blame upon his promise. Please it your highness

23 Casing air. So in Othello, Act iii. Sc. 3"Ye elements that clip us all about.' Importunate doubts.

25 Saucy doubts. 33 Give the cheer. ment to your guests.

4I

You do not give the proper encourage-
It is like selling a feast, not giving it, if

you do not often bid your guests welcome.

36 From thence.

When one is away from home.

38 Good digestion. A 'somewhat physiological grace,' as Dr. Bucknill calls it.

40 Had we now .

roof'd. We should now have all the

noblest of our country under one roof.

To grace us with your royal company?
MACB. The table's full.

LEN. Here is a place reserved, sir.
MACB. Where?

LEN.

Here, my good lord. What is 't that

moves your highness?

MACB. Which of you have done this?

LORDS. What, my good lord? MACB. Thou canst not say I did it: never shake Thy gory locks at me.

ROSSE. Gentlemen, rise; his highness is not well. LADY M. Sit, worthy friends :-my lord is often thus, And hath been from his youth: 'pray you, keep seat; The fit is momentary; upon a thought

He will again be well: If much you note him,
You shall offend him, and extend his passion;
Feed, and regard him not.-Are you a man?

MACB. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appal the devil.

LADY M.

O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear :
This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws, and starts,
(Impostors to true fear,) would well become
A woman's story, at a winter's fire,

Authoriz'd by her grandam. Shame itself!

Why do you make such faces? When all 's done,
You look but on a stool.

50

бо

MACB. Prithee, see there! behold! look! lo! how say you?

Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.— 70 If charnel-houses, and our graves, must send

Those that we bury, back, our monuments

Shall be the maws of kites.

63 These flaws. These gusts and starts which are the parodies of true fear, as far as the reality of their object is concerned.

66 Authorized. The second syllable is long. The meaning is a story the veracity of which is vouched for by her grandmother.'

ib. Shame itself. She speaks to him as to an infant. 69 How say you? Addressed to the ghost; the preceding words to the queen.

LADY M.

What! quite unmann'd in folly?

MACB. If I stand here, I saw him.

LADY M.

Fie, for shame! MACB. Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden

time,

Ere human statute purg'd the gentle weal;

Ay, and since too, murthers have been performed
Too terrible for the ear: the times have been,
That when the brains were out the man would die,
And there an end: but now, they rise again,
With twenty mortal murthers on their crowns,
And push us from our stools: This is more strange
Than such a murther is.

LADY M.

My worthy lord,

Your noble friends do lack you.
МАСВ.

I do forget :

Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends;

I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing

80

To those that know me. Come, love and health to all: Then I'll sit down :-Give me some wine, fill full :—

Enter Ghost.

I drink to the general joy of the whole table,
And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss :
Would he were here! to all and him we thirst,
And all to all.

LORDS.

Our duties, and the pledge.

90

MACB. Avaunt! and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!

75 Blood hath been shed ere now. "A thrust with a dirk or

a stroke with a sword was the time-hallowed and custom-acknow. ledged method of ridding the world of an enemy, and Bothwell had evidently not been prepared for such an outburst of passion about a mere murder." (Froude, History of England, ix. p. 9.) Though Shakspere could not remember Darnley's murder (which happened when he was three years old), yet the accession of James seems to have directed his thoughts that way, as the murder and remarriage in Hamlet may show. And thus the words 'push us from our stools' may here refer indirectly to Mary's dethronement. See the note on Act i. Sc. 7.

76 The gentle weal. Before statutes purged the commonwealth into gentleness-prolepsis.

91 To all and him we thirst. 'I long to drink his health and that of all: and to wish every one all good.'

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with !

LADY M.

Think of this, good peers,

But as a thing of custom : 't is no other;
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.

MACB. What man may dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger,
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble: Or, be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword;
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow !

100

[Ghost disappears. Unreal mockery, hence !-Why, so ;-being gone, I am a man again.—Pray you, sit still.

LADY M. You have displac'd the mirth, broke the good meeting,

With most admir'd disorder.

MACB.

Can such things be, IIO

And overcome us like a summer's cloud,

Without our special wonder? You make me strange
Even to the disposition that I owe,

When now I think you can behold such sights,

And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,

When mine are blanch'd with fear.

ROSSE.

What sights, my lord?

LADY M. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and

worse;

Question enrages him : at once, good night :—
Stand not upon the order of your going,

But go at once.

96 No speculation. None of a living man's intelligence. See Messrs. Clark and Wright's note.

105 I inhabit then. If I keep house, shrink under shelter; but the emendation I inhibit thee' (refuse thee) is to be preferred. 106 The baby of a girl. The doll which a girl plays with, ‘a babe of clouts.'

III

Overcome us. Come over us.

113 The disposition that I owe. You make me surprised even at my own disposition. So Dr. Delius: it might be even at the firmness of my own wife, which I ought to know.'

MACB. It will have blood; they say, blood will have

blood:

Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;
Augurs, and understood relations, have

By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth
The secret'st man of blood.-What is the night?

LADY M. Almost at odds with morning, which is which. MACB. How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person, At our great bidding?

LADY M.
Did you send to him, sir?
MACB. I hear it by the way; but I will send :
There's not a one of them, but in his house

I keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow
(And betimes I will) unto the weird sisters:

More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means, the worst: for mine own good,
All causes shall give way; I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er :

Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
Which must be acted, ere they may be scann'd.

130

140

LADY M. You lack the season of all natures, sleep. MACB. Come, we'll to sleep: My strange and self-abuse Is the initiate fear, that wants hard use:We are yet but young in deed.

[Exeunt.

122 Blood will have blood. So Wordsworth (vii. p. 171) speaks of the

66

Beliefs coiled serpent-like about

The adage on all tongues, 'murder will out."" 124 Augurs and understood relations. That is, augurs by the help of understood relations between omens and events-hendiadys.

130 I hear it by the way. I only heard casually that he intended to refuse if I sent for him.

133 Betimes. To be sounded like a monosyllable; weird as a dissyllable.

142 My strange and self-abuse. My strange misuse of myself is but a beginner's fear which harder practice dispels. The objective self is treated as an adjective, as in 5, 7, 100.

E